


Means to an End

by estherlyon



Series: Prompts in a Galaxy far far away [2]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Canto Bight, Established Relationship, F/M, Undercover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-26
Updated: 2017-12-26
Packaged: 2019-02-22 05:40:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13160442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/estherlyon/pseuds/estherlyon
Summary: Jyn and Cassian are sent on a mission to a certain dubious planet.





	Means to an End

**Author's Note:**

  * For [literatiruinedme](https://archiveofourown.org/users/literatiruinedme/gifts).



> This was the first prompt I ever got on tumblr, sent by [literatiruinedme](http://archiveofourown.org/users/literatiruinedme/pseuds/literatiruinedme), which was "Shut up! It's learning from you!"
> 
> Those who have seen TLJ will recognize the setting, obviously.

She faintly wondered – would she have lived this _if_ , but then in the middle of that thought, she stopped herself because there had been too many _ifs_. If there hadn’t been an Empire; if her parents hadn’t fled; if her mother hadn’t died; if her father hadn’t disappeared; if Saw had never come for her; if Saw had never left her; if the Alliance had never found her.

In the present case, right at that moment, her wondering had more to do with the trappings of luxury afforded not necessarily by the Empire, but by war itself. Even if she vaguely remembered her parents as not being the society types – more likely to have packed her off to some university than to pawn her off as some debutante – she still felt that at some point, maybe, her mother would have been snidely remarking at the sheer ridiculousness of this place as her father sat down to talk business with some boorish old fart. He had been, as she found out, a weapons’ developer, after all.

And everything in Canto Bight was a consequence of the arms trade.

Which was why she was currently trying not to squirm too much in a silver dress, precisely the sort of thing that she had never worn before in her life until Davits Draven had conceded that if she had managed to disappear from under the Empire’s and the Alliance’s noses for nearly a decade, then she was something that he could not afford to turn his nose at as far as operatives went. This was the third of such missions, in which she had to cover for her partner by merely standing aside and being _pretty_ , precisely because no one would assume she could put a blaster shot between the eyes of the first threat they encountered.

Her partner, right now clad as some iteration of a millionaire playboy whom she had to pretend not to know – all slicked hair and suave smiles –, was having a drink with a golden-haired woman who had a very colorful bird perched on her shoulder.

“Shut up! It’s learning from you!” the woman shrieked slightly, upon the animal’s easily repeating what could only be a string of very dirty words in Alderaanian.

He laughed delightedly and in her mind, another torrent of _ifs_ came about, because that man almost never smiled, much less laughed. When he did, it was in soft huffs that she usually felt more than heard, and his smiles were never too open, almost just a shadow, something that pulled at the edges of his lips and his eyes, that she found entirely too precious. This crinkling of his eyes and baring his teeth, dimples lining his cheeks, was not him: it was Cassein Willix, who apparently was outgoing and the type to resort to swear words more in amusement than in frustration. It bothered her more than it should, because she didn’t know if his reserved nature was just that – _nature –_ or the result of being in this fight since he was six years old.

Just as she didn’t know if she would have learned to feel more comfortable with her shoulders bared in Naboo silk _if_.

She smothered her maudlin thoughts in the assurance that apparently everything was going to plan. She nursed a drink at the bar, letting the elderly man at her elbow who had paid it drone on and on about his Fathiers. When her partner smoothed the right lapel of his outlandish maroon jacket, she excused herself to powder her nose with a simpering smile she had always found useful in her short stint as a server in a cantina on Kessel.

Fifteen standard minutes later, she was leaning against the side of their ship, taking in whatever she could of the sea air – one of the few things she supposed were available for free in that town –, watching as Willix’s swagger slowly devolved into a purposeful walk.

“Come here,” she said, as he got close enough for her to be able to grab him by his belt.

“Jyn,” he muttered even as he didn’t resist, “we really need to get going.”

“I _really_ don’t care,” she whispered against his lips, bringing a hand upwards to muss his hair. She pulled away briefly, “for once we were covert but not stealing anything. 

He eyed her, hard, and kissed her like she had wanted him to, making her clench her insides even as her mouth softened under his. Slowly she realized that he was maneuvering her towards the ship’s ramp and she opened her eyes only so she could roll them as she walked backwards into the small shuttle.

“May we be off?” asked K-2SO from the cockpit, his words veiled with their usual peevishness.

Cassian pulled his mouth away from her exposed collarbone just enough that he could yell back an affirmative before fully disentangling himself from her and going to the cockpit. Jyn settled down for take-off, using the time that afforded her to slip off her shoes and stretch out her toes. She was busy contemplating the lines the expensive synthleather had left on her skin when Cassian sat in front of her, gingerly accommodating her feet on his lap. She didn’t know how long she had been sitting there lost in thought; he was wearing only his shirt and trousers, had rinsed the product off his hair.

“It makes me feel worse, actually,” he said quietly.

“What?”

“That this wasn’t completely covert. That we weren’t stealing anything.”

“I only meant that we didn’t need to run off.”

He stroked the arch of her foot, peering through the viewport even through there was nothing to see; they were already in hyperspace.

“I know,” he replied, “but-“

“We gave money to people who do really bad things,” she finished, “and whose parrots live more comfortably than 95% of the Galaxy.”

Air escaped his lips in humorless laughter and she smiled, because there he was: her Cassian, so different from the flattering idiot who had been teaching profanity to some poor bird just so its owner would lower the price of the ion torpedoes she manufactured.

“A rebel once told me,” she whispered as he ran his calloused fingers on the soft skin of her ankle, “that he had done terrible things, but that it had been for a cause he believed in.”

He hummed and she continued.

“Then he followed me on a suicide mission just so he could keep that cause alive,” he peered at her from underneath his lashes and she stroked the inside of his right leg with the foot he wasn’t holding, “we’re all in this together, darling. You don’t need to carry the Galaxy around in your shoulders.”

He got up, placed her feet on the cold floor of the ship, and put out a hand to her 

“You said once you weren’t good with words,” he said softly. 

She got up, shrugged, and picked up the hem of her dress so she wouldn’t trip on it with her bare feet.

“We have five hours in hyperspace. Let’s go to bed, Captain.”


End file.
